Puff Memorial Lecture

The Edward A. Puff Sr. and Edith Kottmyer Puff Memorial Lecture in the Study of Christianity was endowed in 1986 by Rev. Edward A. Puff Jr., of Dayton, and his brother, Harold F. Puff, emeritus professor of management at Miami University. The memorial lecture is named for Edward and Harold's parents, in gratitude for the sacrifices they made that enabled the brothers to attend Miami during the Depression years.

This annual lecture is free and open to the public.

2017-2018 speaker

Charles Mathewes
University of Virginia
"American Christianity After the Religious Right"

NEW DATE! April 20, 2018 (Friday)
4:30 p.m.
152 Shideler Hall

With the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr., in 1968, the United States entered the final years of American Christianity's domination by the "mainline" churches. Over the subsequent 50 years, American Christianity came to be dominated by what is known as the "Religious Right." Now demographic evidence suggests that this era, too, is ending. Dr. Mathewes will examine how the challenges that have hampered the Religious Right will influence whatever form of American Christianity is coming next.

Dr. Mathewes is Carolyn M. Barbour Professor of Religious Studies at the University of Virginia, as well as a Senior Fellow at UVA's Miller Center of Public Affairs.

Past speakers

2016-2017

Sylvester Johnson
Northwestern University
"American Religion and National Security: Race, Religion, and the Security State"

2015-2016

Paula M. Kane
University of Pittsburgh
"Medieval Manhattan: An Antidote to the Jazz Age"